Equatic, a carbon removal company, along with project developer Deep Sky, has announced the commencement of engineering for North America's first commercial-scale ocean-based carbon dioxide removal (CDR) facility. Located in Quebec, this groundbreaking plant is designed to capture 109,500 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere annually while producing 3,600 tonnes of green hydrogen each year. When completed, it will be the largest facility of its kind globally, positioning Equatic to achieve a CDR cost of under $100 per tonne by 2030.
This initiative builds on the momentum from Equatic's recent Equatic-1 demonstration project, which started in Tuas, Singapore in May 2024. Equatic was also recently recognized as a semifinalist in the U.S. Department of Energy's Carbon Dioxide Removal Purchase Pilot Prize. This program aims to identify and support companies that provide high-integrity carbon removal solutions, facilitating the procurement of their carbon removal credits.
Edward Muller, Chairman of Equatic, highlighted the strategic advantages of Quebec for the plant’s location. “Governing bodies around the world emphatically assert the need for accessible, cost-effective, and permanent carbon removal solutions, at low-cost, and with low energy requirements. Our commercial-scale development speaks directly to that need. Quebec is the perfect location for commercial launch given the access to non-fossil electricity and the use of hydrogen to decarbonize the province’s well-established industrial base," stated Muller.
Arup, a global firm specializing in sustainable development and engineering, is leading the site assessment, permitting, and stakeholder governance for the plant. The design will incorporate modular electrolyzers, similar to those used in the Equatic-1 project. This modular approach enables scalable and efficient expansion, allowing for the installation and maintenance of individual units in a staged and systematic manner. The plant is expected to have a net energy consumption of less than 1.4 megawatt hours per tonne of carbon dioxide removed. The electrolyzers, supported by the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), feature oxygen-selective anodes that facilitate the production of green hydrogen while eliminating chlorine by-products during seawater electrolysis.
Equatic's Quebec facility and all future projects will adhere to the highest standards for measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) in electrolytic ocean-based carbon removal, specifically the ISO 14064-2:2019 standards. Developed in collaboration with EcoEngineers and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), this MRV framework ensures comprehensive and transparent monitoring, reporting, and verification of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and removals at the project level. The rigorous adherence to these standards has enabled Equatic to secure pre-sales of carbon credits and green hydrogen to major corporations such as Boeing, with ongoing sales expected.
